Either a) a bag of pork rinds, b) a bag of almonds, c) a jar of almond butter (very expensive).

A container of beef. Bear with me on this one: You want to find some kind of beef that meets the following criteria: A) Is in your budget. B) You can imagine cutting/dividing into 6 equal portions. C) Has some fat.

You can do this with simple tubes of ground beef if you want. Two 1 pound tubes mean’s roughly a 1/3 of a pound will be going to each portioned meal. I user carne picada. It’s a thinly sliced meat with some fat that is designed to be used in fajitas or burritos. I like the texture when it’s cooked, and if you shop when the food it marked down it always seems to be the cheapest.

Others

This isn’t food, just stuff to help you portion it. 1. Brown lunch bags. You can get like 200 of these for a few dollars 2. Some cheap small sandwhich bags. 3. 12 ziplock “tupperware” containers. (The cheap kind that’s okay to lose.) 4. A coffee thermos. 7. A lunch pail/bag.

The Cooking

(End Results is 18 meals, 6 breakfasts, 6 lunches, 6 dinners)

Put the 12 thighs in to the oven with all the cloves from a bulb of garlic. You should separate the cloves, but you don’t need to skin them. The heat from the oven will do that nicely, and you can peel them when you eat it. This will take about 2 hours to cook, depending on your oven, and if the chicken is frozen at all.

While the thighs are cooking, hard boil the eggs. Then set them aside to cool.

Take a skillet, put some butter on it, and then fry up the bacon. (Note: Some might argue that the butter isn’t needed. In my experience you can either grease up that pan somehow, or your first strips of bacon will come out burnt.) When the bacon is done, put it on some paper towels, and pad it dry a bit.

Dice up half the onion, save the other half for next week.

Cut up the pepper as well.

You might need to take the chicken out at this point. If it’s done, pull it out, and let it cool.

In the skillet (I like to use that bacon grease as a base but it isn’t needed) sauté the pepper and half onion, and another bulb’s worth of garlic cloves. (leave the skin on, just like before.)

Add the beef and brown it.

The Portioning

Wash/rinse out the 12 Ziploc containers.

In 6 of them, put 2 chicken thighs each. Share the garlic between them, and evenly divide the fat juice.

In the other 6 evenly spoon out the beef/pepper/onion mix.

Take the veggie blend, evenly pour it across the 12 containers, right on top of the meat.

Put them all in your fridge. If you have minimal fridge space you could just put some in there, and then rest in your freezer. Just pull another out when you pull from the fridge.

You can put this in the same bag as your eggs, or separate sandwich bags, it doesn’t matter.

Now brown bag it, and put it in your fridge.

Conclusion & Things

At this point you now have 6 day’s worth of meals in your fridge (6 containers of Thighs/Veggies, 6 containers Beef/Veggies, and 6 bags with 2 hardboiled eggs and bacon.) This gives you 1 free day a week to cook whatever you want for each meal. (I find it best to do this on a day other than Sunday, because after all that above I’m pretty tired of cooking.)

The pork rinds/nuts/almond butter are there in case you find yourself having cravings. Between staying on top of your water intake and small snacks of these you shouldn’t be overly hungry. If you got hungry on Day One between breakfast and lunch, or lunch and supper while you’re still at work—then portion out some nuts (15 of them ) or some pork rinds to add to your brown bag.

We all should be aiming for at least 8 cups of water a day. I’ve found personally that a bottle of water helps me keep track of this. My bottle is 1 liter, formally housing “smart water”. So I know if I drink two of it, I’ve met my 8 cup mark. No more diet soda.

Make a thermos of coffee in the morning to take to work with you. It’ll help with any caffeine withdrawal headaches. Don’t make this coffee too strong. You’re making some diet changes, and coffee is a natural laxative. If you vacate your GI tract because of it’s going to offset your meals. Better 8 cups of medium to weak coffee in my thermos instead of 4 strong ones in my opinion.

Bonus: If you cleaned up your kitchen, and then take care of the dishes from the day’s cooking. That means you’ll have a clean kitchen aaaallll week except for the stack of Ziploc containers that will slowly accumulate.

Disclaimer: Some might not like that this meal plan has some onion and carrots—both of which have naturally occurring sugar in them. However, each of the beef meals has only a 6th of an onion, and the Normandy blend contains only small amount of carrots—you probably eat less than 1/3 of a carrot per meal. You can certainly not user either. On Week Four I’ve switched over to pure frozen brocoli, and I toss a ¼ cup of shredded cheddar cheese in each container with it. Cooks wonderfully with the chicken in the microwave.

Nutritional Breakdown

Assumptions made:

You’re using large eggs.

You’re cooking a 500g pack of bacon (like from Costco).

No butter used (who uses butter to make bacon?)

You’re using 150g of medium ground beef (70% lean) per dinner.

You’re using large boneless skinless chicken thighs (~90g each).

You’re putting in one cup of the Kirkland Signature Normandy vegetables blend (also from Costco) per lunch/dinner.

It’s worth pointing out that you may want to consider taking a multi-vitamin with this meal plan. It is very low on Vitamins B1, D, E, and K. Calcium, Magnesium, Manganese, and Potassium are also very low, but we need to manage those as part of our electrolyte strategy anyways on keto.

The meal plan has a good amount of calories for a woman of average height and a healthy weight, but will likely be on the low side for taller women and most men. The almond strategy mentioned on the wiki will help a little with increasing the calorie count. You may also want to consider adding these calorie boosting strategies:

Cream in the coffee.

Put a tablespoon of mayonnaise on the chicken while it’s baking. Tasty and it will fit your macros!

Top the vegetables with some cheese before reheating.

Cook more beef. Who doesn’t want more beef?

Walmart Low Carb & Keto Items Shopping List

Low carb diets restrict the consumption of carbohydrates. Foods that contain easily digestible carbohydrates ( for example : sugar, bread, pasta) are replaced or limited with foods that contain more fats and protein in moderate amounts (such as meat, pultry, fish, shellfish, eggs, cheese, nuts and seeds) and foods that contain a low amount of carbohydrates ( spinach, kale, chard). The amount of carbs that is allowed depends on the type of the low-carb diet that you are following.

A popular belief among people that try to lose weight is that with reducing the carb intake you can avoid weight gain from the calories in other macronutrients. However every weight loss from low-carb diets comes from a reduced overall intake of calories.

Deli Area Meats and Cheeses: usually found in the packaged lunchmeat, hot dogs and bacon section.

Jerky; usually in the aisle near nuts.

Jerky is a tricky one. The first choice has the best ingredients and carb count. The others are not the
best choices but many eat them. The serving size on the first is 25 grams 1 stick, just a bit less than 32 grams (4 sticks) on the other two.
Beef Sausage Snack Sticks; <1 carb per serving
Slim Jim Original Smoked Snack Sticks; <5 carbs per servings
Great Value Snack Sticks; 4 carbs per serving

Nuts and Seeds the bigger, cheaper by the ounce bags are usually with baking and the others would be in the nuts/snacks aisle.

Vegetables; usually right as you walk in the door

Wholly Guacamole minis; Classic or Spicy; 2 net carbs per serving
Precut Market side Cauliflower or Broccoli Florets; varies
Premade salads; Not all are low carb/Keto! The Ranch Cobb Salad is a good choice; 2 net carbs per serving (Note that there are 4.5 servings in the container!)
Ready to eat Celery Sticks; 0 net carbs per serving

Cans and packets of meat; in the canned meat aisle

Do note that some flavors will have more carbs than others. Also, if you buy a can, make sure it has a flip top opening if you don’t have a can opener in your car or desk drawer. Grab a pack of plastic forks too! These are great with a little mayo, put on a salad or eaten right out of the packet or can.

Other

Hard Boiled Eggs, some are near the packaged deli meats and some are near the eggs; <1 carb each
Whisps, usually near the deli department; 1 carb per serving
Snack Pack Juicy Gels, on the shelf near packaged puddings; <1 carb per serving
Oh Snap! Dilly Bites, near packaged deli meats; 0 carbs per serving
Pork Rinds, in chip aisle; usually 0 carbs per serving but some flavors have carbs.
Natural Oloves Pitted Green Olives, on the bottom shelf with pickles and olives; <1 carb per serving
Pearls Olives to Go, on the bottom shelf with pickles and olives; 1 carb for black olives, 0 carbs for green olives

How to Get Into Ketosis in 24 Hours (7 Easy Steps)

Thinking about going Keto, but don’t know where to begin?

If so, stick around.

While a standard ketogenic diet will have you in ketosis in 3 to 5 days, this post will show you how to get into ketosis in 24 hours, instead. All it takes is these 7 easy steps!

[Already in ketosis? Article also includes links to tons of Keto resources here on the site. Just scroll down to the bottom of the article for what to do after you’re in ketosis!]

Getting into ketosis fast is important because ketosis drastically reduces cravings that make dieting difficult. When ketones are produced, hunger drops, energy soars, and you begin to feel a wonderful sense of well-being.

As insulin comes down, due to the lack of sugar in the diet, your blood glucose level stabilizes, and you avoid the mood swings and frustration so common on low-calorie programs. Your thinking becomes clear, digestion gets better, and you can even lose a lot of that bloating you might get after meals.

Some people even discover that their small aches and pains, joint stiffness, and heartburn goes away.

All of these Keto benefits make it easier to stick to your diet, so you don’t want to waste any time getting into ketosis. It’s best to reach that blessed state as soon as possible.

However, if you’re thinking about indulging in a last-time carb binge just before you give Keto a try, this quick and easy method of getting into ketosis in 24 hours won’t work very well.

Since ketosis requires you to empty out your carbohydrate stores in order to trigger fat-burning, bingeing on your favorite carbs the day before you go Keto will only sabotage your efforts.

For that reason, I’m going to give you 7 specific steps that I follow when I’m trying to get into ketosis faster myself. This way, you can take charge of your life and be on your way to a healthier weight in only a single day.

Step 1: Start Your Keto Diet on the Weekend

There’s a common recommendation within low-carb circles to just start where you are, with your very next meal, but if comfort is important to you, then you might want to use a bit of strategy when using this absolute fastest way to get into ketosis.

This is because you’ll be using a short-form of water fasting to get the job done as quickly as possible.

Fasting to get into ketosis is not a new idea. People have been using this method for awhile now. However, there are tricks you can use to make the process more comfortable and less stressful, especially if you’re used to using food to soothe your emotional state.

Whether you choose to do this on Friday and Saturday, or Saturday and Sunday doesn’t matter. The idea is to have you skip two meals when you can more easily distract yourself with errands, family obligations, a fun day, or other self-interests.

If you have to go to work while fasting, you’ll be fighting all of the break room donuts, lunches, and snack machines. Best to set yourself up for success and do the fasting when you’re at home.

Personally, I do this on Friday night to Saturday night, so if something happens and my hunger hasn’t crashed by Sunday morning, I have another day that I can go zero carb to keep the momentum going. While the body will trigger ketosis as soon as you run out of glycogen, hunger is attached to your triglyceride and insulin levels, which might take an extra day to normalize.

Step 2: To Speed Up Ketosis, Make Your First Keto Meal Zero Carb

On Friday or Saturday night, whichever night works best for you, have a zero-carb meal. This meal starts your fast, so it will be the last time you eat before Saturday or Sunday night. No snacking during the evening. If you want to speed up getting into ketosis, this is not optional. It’s the prelude to your fast.

Zero carbs are only found in:

meats, poultry, and fish

healthy fats like coconut oil, bacon fat, nut oils, and butter

However, we know from what Dr. Atkins taught in 1972 that a carbohydrate load of less than 10 carbs will be treated by the body as if you hadn’t eaten any carbs at all, so go ahead and season your meat with your favorite herbs and spices, including packaged marinade blends.

Just be careful with the garlic and onion powder because garlic and onion are pretty high in carbs. Use mayonnaise, where appropriate, and cook up 2 or 3 eggs to go along with the main course.

The eggs can be hard boiled and made into egg salad. They can be scrambled, soft boiled, baked, or fried. You can even make deviled eggs if you like. This way, your first dinner will contain two items and feel more like a meal.

Eggs contain 0.6 carbs each, so you are only adding 1.2 to 1.8 grams of carbohydrates to your dinner, and even less than that for a tablespoon or two of mayo.

If you’re doing this on Friday night, you could even pick up a lemon-pepper or garlic-and-herb rotisserie chicken from the grocery store on the way home from work.

There is no portion restriction on how much you can eat. Eat until you’re satisfied. The only requirement is that the total carb count of your meal should be less than 5. Carbs should be the incidental carbs found in eggs, mayonnaise, herbs, and spices.

Try to have your meal earlier in the evening.

We normally eat around 5:00 p.m. or so, but if you’re doing this on a Friday night and don’t get home from work to eat that early, you can certainly push the meal back to later in the evening. If so, you’ll need to extend your fast on Saturday, so that you eat your next zero-carb dinner at about the same time as you did on Friday night.

Step 3: How to Get Into Ketosis in 24 Hours is Fasting

To deepen Ketosis, skip breakfast and lunch the next day. Don’t eat again until around the same time that you ate dinner the day before. This makes a full 24-hour fast.

Ketosis is triggered when your liver glycogen stores (the storage form of carbohydrates) depletes itself about half way. When you don’t eat any carbs, the body has to draw upon these glycogen stores to keep your blood glucose level steady.

Since you can easily store about 80 to 100 carbs worth of glycogen at any one time, you only have to burn through about 200 to 300 calories of carbs before the body begins to find alternatives. Some of these alternatives include oxidizing amino acids and making ketones from the glycerol backbone attached to triglycerides.

Since liver glycogen stores are relatively small, many people are actually in a mild form of ketosis when they wake up in the morning. This is one of the reasons why Intermittent Fasting works so well. Going for long periods of time in between meals helps you to become more sensitive to the insulin your body makes.

On the average, basal metabolism uses 50 to 60 calories per hour, while sleeping, so by the time you go 4 to 6 hours without any carbs coming in during the night, the body is already turning to proteins, lactic acid, and ketones to feed the brain by the time you get up.

If your last meal of the day was zero carbs, and you didn’t eat anything before going to bed, ketosis will be well under way by the following morning. The body will have run out of fuel during the night and will have already begun the ketosis process by the time you wake up.

What you’re going to do to speed up ketosis is take advantage of that normal, slightly ketotic state. You need to get into a deeper state of ketosis, so you’re next going to force the body to create more ketones for fuel.

You do that by skipping breakfast and lunch.

Without more proteins and carbs coming in, the body will turn to its worn-out protein structures and fat stores for fuel because your liver glycogen stores will already be depleted.

Muscle glycogen is a closed system. The muscles pull glucose into its cells from the bloodstream, lowering your blood glucose level, but it won’t directly share with the liver if liver glycogen is low. It’s stingy. It saves what is has for itself.

As the blood glucose level drops, due to muscle requirement for glucose, the liver continues to empty its glycogen stores, while seeking alternative sources of glucose, so activity does help to make the process work quicker.

This is why you’re not going to eat until dinner.

If you aren’t already in a state of ketosis when trying to fast, it can be a bit uncomfortable. The hormone ghrelin is secreted according to your eating pattern, and secrets around the same time every day, so if you’re used to eating breakfast every morning, you honestly might get hungry.

Same goes for lunch. Ghrelin is secreted just before your normal lunch time, so it’s going to take a bit of willpower to get through this, especially since your last meal was zero carbs.

When I was growing up, our family always fasted for two meals on the first Sunday of every month. Although, it was often difficult, I would simply tell my stomach that I was fasting, that it wasn’t negotiable, and I wasn’t going to eat until later in the day.

I then turned my attention to something else.

The best way to get through this is to distract yourself with fun things to do.

Find things to do that take your mind off the hunger.
Don’t just sit around waiting for dinner time.

My mom used to take us for nature walks or to a wilderness park that was nearby. Once a month, we’d go to our grandparents house on the day we were fasting and eat dinner there. Sometimes, I’d get lost in a book and sometimes, I’d watch something extremely interesting on television. Today, I get lost on the internet.

Whatever you choose to do while fasting, make sure that it doesn’t include food. Even low-carb food. That’s a recipe for disaster. Stick with something active. It will make the time fly by faster.

Step 4: Drink Lots of Water and Carb-Free Beverages Throughout the Day

Since this is a personalized form of fasting, I’m not going to require you to drink only water. Many people do it that way, but I don’t. I drink:

water

diet sodas

tea or herb teas

salty chicken broth

Crystal Light type beverages

Even when fasting. Coffee can be drunk black or sweetened with a liquid sugar substitute to avoid any carbs in the filler. Powdered sweeteners always contain carbs. About 1 carb per packet. Heavy cream contains 6.6 carbs per cupful, so also keep that in mind if you choose to use a tablespoon or two of heavy cream.

Heavy whipping cream contains 0.4 grams of carbohydrate per tablespoon. Not enough to keep you from going into ketosis. But if you’re a heavy coffee drinker or have a habit of not measuring out how much you’re using, those carbs could interfere with getting into ketosis quickly.

Some low carbers put butter and coconut oil in their coffee, instead of cream. I personally do not like it that way, so I just use diet soda on days when I don’t eat breakfast and lunch.

As long as what you drink contains no carbohydrates, it will not interfere with you getting into ketosis within 24 hours.

Water is necessary to help replace the water needed to process your glycogen stores. When insulin falls, the body dumps sodium and to regain balance, it also sheds extra water. Water is also lost if you’ve been retaining water due to protein deficiency.

Recommended water intake is to drink half of your current body weight in ounces a day. Since I currently weigh 200 pounds, that would be 100 ounces for me — slightly more than three 32-ounce glasses of liquids.

Dr. Atkins recommended that you drink a minimum of 64 ounces a day, and did not require you to drink only water, so if you aim for a higher intake, like that explained above, you’re more likely to hit or exceed that 64 ounces recommendation of liquids.

When the body is dehydrated, a need for water can surface as hunger, and the last thing you want to go through on a fast is hunger, so you’ll want to make sure that whichever method you use to determine your water intake that you drink enough liquids so that you aren’t more hungry than you need to be.

In addition, liquids can help to calm the stomach until it’s time to eat dinner.

Step 5: To Get Into Ketosis in 24 Hours, Reduce Your Stress Load

This is another good reason why you need to do this on the weekend. You need to leave work at work. Stressful situations cause you to secrete cortisol, a stress hormone that controls how your body burns fuel.

A small bit of cortisol, secreted now and then is fine. It’s how the body was designed to work.

But when cortisol stays chronically elevated, either because you consistently worry too much or you are under some type of severe stress, it causes the liver to continuously dump it’s glycogen stores into the bloodstream.

Worrying about how much you’re losing on the scale or whether the diet is going to work for you is enough to stop weight loss dead in its tracks. Honestly. I’m not kidding here.

Are you too concerned with the number on the scale?
If so, the worry can actually slow down weight loss!

Many low-carb dieters are so obsessed with the numbers on the scale that they can think of little else. They allow that number to control their feelings about themselves, their day, and even living.

Dumping glycogen is what you want to initially happen when trying to get into ketosis, but if there isn’t any glycogen to dump, the liver will create glucose and dump that into the bloodstream, instead. This is called gluconeogenesis and keeps your blood glucose level consistently elevated, which in turn causes your basal insulin level to rise.

Too much cortisol tells the liver that you are in physical danger and need a lot of energy fast. The brain doesn’t understand the difference between physical danger and emotional stress. When emotionally stressed, the brain thinks you’re in a life-and-death situation, so the liver comes to your rescue and gives you the glucose you need to fight off your attacker.

However, there is no real physical danger. There is no attacker. That’s only in your mind. You just got your feelings hurt or you’re worried about something.

If you judge what you weigh today to be bad, if you judge anything to be bad, inside of you or outside of you, then you’re going to drive up your glucose and insulin levels — guaranteed.

Taking charge of your stress can be done through:

meditation

relaxation techniques

having a fun-outing day

doing something you particularly enjoy doing

changing your belief system

How you get into ketosis in 24 hours is by keeping your stress load as low as possible during your fast, and even beyond.

In fact, it’s even more important to maintain calmness, clear thinking, self-compassion, and patience as you move into your regular Keto diet. Since Keto is a lifetime commitment, anything that drives up insulin will affect how easily you burn fat for fuel.

Step 6: Rev Up Your Activity

I briefly talked about this above in connection with getting through the day, when fasting. It’s important to stay actively engaged in something that doesn’t include food. But actively engaged doesn’t always include getting up and moving.

To help you speed up getting into ketosis, you can also include some low-intensity activities, such as walking or swimming. I’m hesitant to recommend light cardio because people rarely understand what “light” cardio even means.

Too much exercise when fasting will drive up cortisol levels, as discussed above, because it will stress out your body, especially if you are fairly sedentary. You don’t want your heartbeat to go too high while fasting, unless you’re already a well-trained endurance athlete.

What you want to do is use your muscle groups, so that they have to pull in glucose from the bloodstream to replace the glycogen you’re using during activity. This will further encourage the liver, already short on glycogen, to turn to your fat stores to feed the brain.

When the liver breaks down triglyceride into fatty acids, incomplete fragments called ketones result, which can be used by the entire body for fuel in the beginning stage of ketosis.

Intense exercise — more than just fidgeting or pacing — uses ketones, when glucose is in short supply, which means the body has to create more ketones to replace what you use. This is great for those who are used to a moderate to intense activity level, but intensity is a fine dance between encouraging ketone production and elevating cortisol for the rest of us.

Try and keep your heart rate below 130 beats a minute while fasting. Since getting into ketosis only takes one day, this is only a temporary restriction on exercise.

Step 7: Break Your Fast with Another Zero-Carb Meal and Snack

Make your second zero-carb meal also something you love.
We LOVE barbecued spareribs smoked or grilled.

When I moved into extreme fat-burning mode in 2008, I started my personalized version of Atkins with a full week of zero carb to clear out the glycogen as quickly as possible and get the body into fat-burning mode.

Today, I realize that a full week of eating that way isn’t really necessary. A good hard start is all you need to get the wheels of fat-burning turning.

And zero-carb, followed by fasting for two meals, and then followed up by a second zero-carb meal is almost always all you need to get into ketosis fast. By Sunday or Monday morning, after a second night of no carbs, you’ll be in a deep enough ketosis that hunger will crash and your energy will surge to help you transition into your low-carb diet of choice.

When I fast or do zero carb, I always experience a surge in energy and well-being.

When I first went zero carb, I was pretty shocked to discover that some of the low-carb foods I was eating were contributing to my neck and knee pains. All of my aches and pains went away when I removed all vegetable matter from my diet.

Later on, when I tried to return a salad with olive oil and vinegar dressing, my hunger went through the roof, but not because of the salad.

It was actually the olive oil and vinegar I was reacting to.

So I don’t want you to break your fast with carbs. It’s better to break your fast with another zero-carb meal, so you can be in a fed state when you begin to transition into a more normal low-carb diet.

Like in Step 1, pick a protein food that you absolutely love to break your fast, and add a couple of eggs.There arestill no portion restrictions, so eat until you’re satisfied, and if you need a snack before bed, choice something that is high in protein and fat like tuna mixed with mayonnaise.

Tuna salad is one of the most satisfying foods there is. It literally kills your cravings. I don’t know why this works. It just does. If you need to snack after dinner, tuna salad is what I recommend here.

Okay. I’m in Ketosis. Now What?

Once you’re in ketosis, you have a wealth of options to choose from. You can either go with a full-structured plan, such as:

Atkins Diet

Keto Diet at Reddit

Nutritional Ketosis (also called Keto)

Protein Power LifePlan

Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSFM)

Or you can design your own low-carb plan by starting with the basics of a ketogenic diet and building from there. Whichever way you want to go, we have lots of resources here on the site to help you get started

WALMART Keto And Low Carb GROCERY List For Beginners

Keto Food Items at Walmart

Since I posted my Very Basic Keto Grocery List and Amazon Keto List, I thought that perhaps a list of Keto staples at Walmart might be helpful. I also run into ALDI sometimes (here is an ALDI keto grocery list), but with four kids I try to stick to one store per week. I took pics of many of the Keto food items at Walmart that find their way into my grocery cart each week. I know that inventory can vary from store to store, but this should give you an idea of what to look for when you are shopping. I narrowed my list down to the top 16, although clearly there are more items in my cart in the pic above. We mainly shop the perimeter of the store then add fresh produce and meats. My shopping trips are certainly much quicker now since we skip half of the store. There are tons of other keto items you can buy at Walmart, but these are the ones I use the most often.

1. Heavy Whipping Cream

Hello, heavy whipping cream, who knew I would use you every single day of my life. Heavy Whipping Cream was a new item I had never bought before Keto. Now, I use it each morning in place of creamer in my coffee as well as in many Keto desserts and meals.

Here are a couple of Keto recipes with heavy whipping cream:

Chocolate Mousse

Key Lime Mousse

The Best Ever Keto Friendly Lemon Pie

Everything But the Kitchen Sink Fat Bombs

Chicken with Mushroom Gravy

Cheesy Ranch Chicken & Broccoli

2. Cream Cheese

We go through quite a bit of cream cheese. I use it in many different desserts and sauces like Peanut Butter Fluff and Creamy Parmesan Pork Chops. I prefer to purchase the Philadelphia brand as it contains fewer ingredients and it has less carbs.

If it fits in your budget, grass-fed Kerrygold butter is best.

3. Nitrate Free Smoked Sausage

4. Nitrate Free Bacon

Is it possible to buy too much bacon? I don’t think so. This brand and variety is our go-to bacon because it is nitrate-free. We may not be able to buy all of our meats grass-fed or everything organic, but we can take small steps where we can.

6. Organic Unsweetened Coconut

I would never have thought that I would love unsweetened coconut so much. This brand is my favorite since it is organic, priced right, and finely shaved. I add it to whipped cream with Lily’s Chocolate Chips and roasted pecans for a quick treat. Keto German Chocolate Bars are also delish with unsweetened coconut.

7. Keto Friendly Nuts

Walmart has a huge variety of nuts. Pecans and walnuts are my personal favorites.

8. Almond & Coconut Flour

Keto approved flours are very different than their white gluten filled fluffy counterparts. It does take some getting used to the texture when you first make the transition. I personally cook with coconut flour because my daughter is allergic to almonds, but many people bake with almond or a combination of the two.

9. Xanthan Gum

Xanthan Gum is a keto approved thickening agent for soups and sauces. It is also used in baking. I think this is a specialty item that isn’t available in all Walmart stores. If you can’t find it locally, Amazon offers a variety of options.

10. Keto Approved Sweeteners

I just started using Pyure liquid sweetener in my coffee. Amazon offers a vanilla flavored Pyure that might be yummy in coffee as well if you are missing flavors. They also carry a bag of Pyure sweetener that is a bakeable stevia blend (see arrow). You will want to avoid this particular product as it contains maltodextrin, which most avoid on a keto diet. All of the others are fine.

11. 100% Unsweetened Chocolate Bar

I don’t eat this by itself as it is too bitter, but when I shave it and add it to my Peanut Butter Fluff, it is delicious.

12. Sugar-Free Syrup

I checked all of the sugar-free syrups, and the Walmart brand was the only one that didn’t include aspartame. Instead, this one has sucralose, which many people avoid on a keto diet. However, it doesn’t stall me. If you are looking for a completely clean syrup, Lankanto makes a maple syrup sweetened with monk fruit that you can find on Amazon here.

10. Organic Coconut Oil

Coconut Oil is a keto approved oil that is used in many different recipes.

11. Reduced-Sugar Ketchup

I’m so glad I don’t have to give up ketchup entirely. This is another one of those items that are up to each individual as it contains sucralose. But, I don’t eat it very often so it is okay with me.

12. Sugar-Free BBQ Sauce

13. Natural Peanut Butter

Some eat peanut butter on a ketogenic diet while others don’t. I belong to the camp that does. You always want to make sure that the only ingredients are peanuts and salt. Smucker’s Natural chunky is our personal favorite.

14. Frozen Riced Cauliflower

If I am making riced cauliflower, I promise it will never happen by hand. This busy momma does not have time for all the steps it would require to start with a head of fresh cauliflower. Thankfully, I don’t have to since riced cauliflower is available in the freezer section of the grocery store.

15. Lower Carb Marinara Sauce

After looking at the nutritional information of many different marinara sauces at Walmart, I have found that these two have the least amount of carbs. The biggest difference is that one cost significantly less than the other.

16. Cheese Please!

Walmart is like the mothership when it comes to cheese. I love buying the cracker slices and deli slices to make Homemade Cheese Crackers. There are tons of different varieties.

Other Items Worth Mentioning:

Veggie Zucchini Spirals

I could get behind this product for busy nights.

I’ve never personally used avocado oil, but it is on the list of keto approved oils.

Organic Grass-fed Ghee is another item I haven’t tried but have seen mentioned in many Keto groups.

Bone Broth

I know bone broth has many health benefits but I haven’t tried it yet. I didn’t realize Walmart carried it.

Of course, these are not all of the keto items that Walmart stocks. I just wanted to make a quick list of some of my staple grocery items that I keep stocked.